China Life #5

 October 8, 2025

I have moved to a blog format to make everything easier with regards to sending and viewing files. Hopefully this works well for everyone! (Sorry for the weird formatting and odd spacing of pictures, etc. I'll get better at this as I learn!)

So last time I wrote, there was a "super typhoon" in the works and Kieran's camp to Hong Kong had been cancelled while Noémie was still looking forward to going to Beijing. As it turns out, changing the camps around was a good idea because the typhoon was indeed a beast and did absolutely plummel Hong Kong. In fact, the authorities in Guangdong province were so concerned about it that they issued a rare "red alert" on the Monday night (Noémie had flown to Beijing with her grade level that morning) and school was cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Tuesday turned out to be beautiful and sunny here, so I enjoyed getting some things done around the house, getting a pedicure, and inviting a couple of other teachers over for a glass of wine that evening.

At 2:00am Kieran came bursting into my room saying, "Mom! Get up! There's water everywhere!" so I dived out of bed, assuming that the typhoon had arrived and blown in some windows or something. However, despite running out into the hall and indeed splashing my way to the kitchen, it was eerily calm and quiet outside. No windows broken, not even any rain. 

But there was definitely water. 

Everywhere. 

As I started waking up and turning on lights I realized that I could hear a spraying sound and I went into the kitchen, where we had our own personal indoor typhoon taking place. Water was literally spraying everywhere. I couldn't even really tell from where. 

I reached into the spray and opened the cupboard under the sink, which was the source. I felt my way through the spraying water until I grabbed a pipe and felt a big hole. Panic was setting in as I had absolutely no idea where the main water shutoff was, nor who to call. My pyjamas were soaked. Kieran was soaked. I followed along the pipe until I felt a valve and twisted it, hoping for the best. Thankfully that worked and the spray stopped. 

It is hard to describe how much water was all over the house. The floor rugs were saturated. Kieran's bed, which is just a mattress on the floor in his room across the dining room from the kitchen, was drenched. Our sunken livingroom and 2x3m rug was in a cm of water.

We have no big rags, only a few towels, and no form of water vacuum. I did manage to locate a couple of mops.

Kieran opened the patio door in the kitchen and started sweeping the puddle out over the balcony. I began mopping and wringing out his room. We moved his dry things into Noémie's room (which luckily, being at the far end of the hall, had just barely stayed dry). After about an hour I told him to go to bed-- there was no sense in both of us being up all night. Fortunately school was already canceled the next day, and Noémie's room was available for him to use. I continued mopping and wringing until 4:30am.

The real typhoon was disappointingly anti-climactic around here. It was definitely windier than usual and it rained pretty hard, but was by far not the biggest storm we had experienced. As a matter of fact, the biggest part of the typhoon that we saw actually hit on the first day we were back at school after “sheltering” for 2 days.

On the Friday of that week, Kieran and I packed up and headed to a hotel near the airport. Noémie met us there that evening once she was home from Beijing. We were flying out at 5:30am so had to be back at the airport really early, and then had a full day in Bangkok. Our trip to Thailand was a lovely getaway. We had 3 days in Bangkok during which time we went on a food tour (it POURED rain) in the back streets and sampled 16 different Thai foods. 

Fire Exting Sher at the Bangkok Airport

This was at a Michelin-star restaurant in a back alley in Chinatown of Bangkok. 

The kids both had smoothie-bowls that looked like a beach.

    We also went to a fabulous shopping mall which had themes of different world cities on every level and a wonderful food court. The highlights for me were the bathrooms, which all were elaborately decorated in the theme of that floor’s city. 

  The "London" bathroom.

                                                  

The "Istanbul" bathroom decorated like a Turkish bathhouse.

The men's "San Francisco" bathroom was a locker room theme at the end of this elaborate "Football" hall, while the women's washroom was decked out in pom-poms and cheerleading paraphernalia.

I loved the bathrooms! This hot-air balloon/Cappadoccia themed washroom was also on the Istanbul floor.

OK just one more bathroom shot. This was "Tokyo" and all in the style of a peaceful Japanese garden.

We also went to the wild and endless Chatuchak market, with over 15,000 stalls selling everything you can (and cannot) imagine. We took the public ferry to various temples and the flower market, and saw the enormous Reclining Buddha.

The Reclining Buddha

 

Wat Arun

Trying to cool off in the temple

After Bangkok we flew to Phuket and I had underestimated the size of the island. Our BnB was over an hour from the airport and although it was geographically close to the beach, it was physically impossible to access because there was a busy 4-lane highway separating our neighbourhood from the ocean… and various resorts and private homes blocking access. In that Noémie was not feeling well and Kieran really wanted to surf, I booked us a different cheap hotel near Kata beach which was much more suited to our wants. We went straight to the beach and rented a surf board for Kieran. Noémie and I took turns going to cool off in the waves while the other guarded our stuff under a beach umbrella. Kieran had a great few hours surfing, however all of us were neglectful with the amount of sun we got and all ended up burned. The beach was beautiful, however, despite the heat and the surprisingly huge number of Russian tourists.

Kieran catching a wave

Kata Beach

A happy surfer

A few blocks away from our hotel was the Kata Beach Night Market, where we went every night for pad thai, curries, coconut ice cream, seafood, and crêpes. It was fabulous.

Kieran took his PADI course and I went out on the boat with him to do a couple of dives on the second day. On the third day as he was wrapping up his certification, Noémie and I went into Phuket town and wandered around looking at a few temples, markets, and poking in and out of shops. 

I was enchanted by this honesty

My new dive buddy in the making!

A SCUBA diver is born!

The water was stunning

Noémie is in this photo.

Exploring Phuket town

Our last day in Phuket was a bit stressful because I had arranged a ride to take us to our next BnB in Khao Sok National Park (2.5 hours away) and the driver cancelled at the last minute. Every other driver I contacted said that it was too far. In desperation I went into one of the few travel agencies that was open on a Sunday morning, and asked how we could get to our next destination. I was told to wait 2 hours, then take a taxi into Phuket town (45 minutes away) and then take a public bus for 6 hours which would then drop us off 2 kilometres from our BnB. 

This news was so depressing to me that I told Kieran to go back to the beach and surf while I tried to come up with a Plan B. 

Back at Kata Beach

Noémie and I decided to go get a coffee at a little shop down the street. On our way, we passed a guy sitting in the back of his van next to a sign offering local tours and activities. He looked at us hopefully. I said, “You don’t happen to drive to Khao Sok, do you?” He nodded, then said, “5000 Baht”. (Which was almost double what I was going to pay our original driver). Dejected, we just kept walking. Then he called, “OK! Lady! 3500!” I turned back towards him and countered with 3200, and he accepted. He also agreed to pick us up from our hotel and drop us right at the door of our BnB that night. Hooray! So as soon as Kieran was back from the beach, we bought some lunch (rather spicy but delicious) and hopped into our private air-conditioned mini-van. We arrived at our treehouse by 4:00pm, just in time to go for a tube ride down the river!

Tubing turned out to be a highlight

We were told to keep moving so that the "bubble fish" wouldn't bite us. Still don't know what that was about.

Khao Sok is a beautiful area— home to the rafflesia, the world’s biggest (and allegedly stinkiest) flower. As we tubed down the river we saw monkeys, and our guides (a couple of kids) pointed out both a mangrove snake and a python up in a tree. The tubing was wonderful—cool and shady, and had a few sets of small rapids so we got pushed along at a good pace. There were karst formations and large walls covered in honey bee nests. We passed many riverside lodges and campgrounds before being picked up by the manager of our BnB, who helped load us into the back of his pickup truck for the ride back to our BnB through palm and eucalyptus plantations.

Our treehouse was beyond basic— it was more like glamping. But we had essentially a giant triple bed, a small balcony, and a functional bathroom which we shared with a cockroach.

Our treehouse.

Dinner by the river

Endless amazing food!

Unfortunately Noémie was still battling a vicious cold so she was miserable when I pulled her out of bed and made her come hiking with us. We were trying to find a waterfall but either we missed it, or the translation of “waterfall” was loosely referring to a small set of rapids on the river. Regardless, we did get to walk right through a huge family of macaques who were not in the least bothered by us. Kieran and I enjoyed the walk through the jungle and poor Noémie sniffled and dragged herself along. That evening we went to a nearby elephant reserve where we got to feed two older female elephants some bananas, leaves, and cane.

We did not take the special tour to go find the rafflesia.

There were so many macaques!

Peaceful, old elephants

The final tube ride

Our last morning in Thailand started with another early tube ride down the river, before piling into a mini-van full of people for the ride to Surat Thani airport. We then flew back to Bangkok, but unfortunately arrived with our bags at a different airport from the one we would be departing from later that night. So we had to figure out how to get the shuttle between airports, then find the luggage consignment at the international terminal, and by the time we had dropped our bags off and were ready to go spend a few more hours in Bangkok, it was absolutely POURING rain and there was lightning and thunder. Our cab driver texted me while we were waiting to be picked up to head into the city, and he said that traffic was terrible and we would never get back to the airport in time for our next flight if we went too far. So he suggested taking us to a mall which was much closer, mostly indoors, and was open. That’s where we ended up— at an outlet mall near the airport in the pouring rain— so we had a nice dinner, poked into some stores, and then when everything started to close we went back to the airport and sat around waiting until our flight left at 2:30am.

We made it home yesterday at about 8:00am and went to bed after a long night of travel. Thank goodness that China has such great grocery-ordering apps! I put in my orders at 2 different stores and the fridge was re-stocked within an hour. In the afternoon I walked down to the local market for a few things that I had forgotten.

Today I was back at work. Tomorrow is another PD day, so Kieran is going mountain biking and Noémie is catching up on homework. They start school again on Monday, and we have about 9 weeks until our next big break.

It’s still really hot and humid here, but after spending 10 days constantly looking for the next restaurant, site, or activity and having to pay for every little thing we did, it was nice to be back in our own beds. We are all actually finding Guangzhou feeling somewhat familiar.